New healthcare emphasis aids busy executives

Healthcare is constantly evolving, and staying current can be a challenge. Emory Executive Education is harnessing faculty expertise and industry contacts to offer new programming that enables executives to be responsive to shifts in the field. Recently, JB Kurish, professor in the practice of finance and senior associate dean for executive education, and Susan-Anne MacKenna, director of executive education programs, sat down to talk more about the intersection of healthcare and business.

Q: Emory Executive Education is introducing a series of new courses with an emphasis on healthcare. What was the impetus behind this move?

Kurish: Clearly, healthcare is an incredibly important, powerful sector that impacts everyone in some way. We knew the topic was ripe for programming and began to talk to colleagues and alumni to delve into the questions: What is happening in a big sense with regulatory and legislative issues, and how are people involved with healthcare impacted by its new and changing environment?

MacKenna: As we spoke with people about the changing environment, we realized they were seeking answers to these same questions. In fact, there is a pent-up demand, especially in Atlanta, for more education by those inside healthcare organizations and others who partner with them.

Q: Is the new healthcare certificate a result of this demand?

MacKenna: Within the healthcare space, there are not many business schools using executive education as a primary delivery model. Some provide a course here or there, but none have created a concentrated, focused certificate series that can provide genuine value. This was a gap we could uniquely and distinctively fill.

Kurish: We also know our audience needs flexibility. The courses will be stand alone, with a two-day delivery time, so participants can take one or more without any prerequisites. We will launch our Goizueta Healthcare Certificate courses in early 2017. Instruction is delivered primarily by Steve Culler, associate professor of health policy and management at Rollins School of Public Health with a dual appointment as adjunct associate professor of finance at Goizueta, and Greg Esper 09EMBA, a practicing physician, director of a neurology practice, director of new care models for Emory Healthcare, and a professor at Emory’s School of Medicine with an adjunct appointment at Goizueta. In addition, other healthcare experts within the broader Emory community also serve to deliver content in the offerings to provide broader perspectives from across the healthcare industry.

Q: How is Goizueta uniquely positioned to offer this topic of healthcare?

Kurish: We can leverage the assets and resources we have at Emory—our great academic schools and our proximity to and relationships within the CDC.

Additionally, many of the medical doctors who have gone through our executive MBA program are now in senior roles in their organizations, here at Emory or elsewhere, and have become change agents within the healthcare delivery system. They are making an impact, having a voice, and telling us that what they learned in business is helping them to have better outcomes.

Q: How many classes will make up the certificate?

MacKenna: Six courses are required for the advanced certificate, five of which are taught here at Goizueta and one at The Washington Campus, an educational entity that provides specialized, immersive, week-long seminars in Washington, DC.